Threats after Georgia school shooting -- hoax or not -- resulting in arrests

ATLANTA – At least 11 juveniles and one adult in Georgia have been arrested and accused of making school threats in the days after four people were killed and nine others were injured in a shooting at Apalachee High School.

Each of the students have been charged with making terroristic threats. If convicted of a felony charge, they could face fines or jail time, in addition to discipline from their schools.

“You’ve got these 11- and 12-year-old kids that don’t understand the consequences and the far reach of what their words can cause,” Oconee County Sheriff James Hale said in an interview. Two middle school students were charged after making potential threats of school violence. “These kids don’t understand that by saying that, it puts into motion a machine that is a runaway train sometimes.”

A 14-year-old was arrested and charged with murder after allegedly killing two students and two teachers at Apalachee High in Barrow County on Wednesday. In the immediate aftermath, threats started surfacing around the state, sometimes mentioning specific schools. School was canceled in Franklin County on Friday due to “online threats made directly” toward the school system. Officials in Fulton County are investigating online threats made to several of its schools.

Students have been arrested Clarke, Forsyth, Gwinnett, Hall, Jackson, Newton and Oconee counties. Their ages range from 11 to 17. The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office announced Chris Cooper, 26, of Jackson, was charged Friday with dissemination of information relating to terroristic acts after an investigation into threats of violence against the school district in that county.

Two high school students face criminal charges in Gwinnett County, the state’s largest district, after making threats. One student admitted they were seeking attention, according to a news release from the school system. The other told investigators they did it to avoid going to school.

“Students must understand that these actions have real consequences up to and including criminal charges,” said Gwinnett’s Chief of Schools Al Taylor in the release. “These threats not only disrupt teaching and learning but also incite fear and panic in our schools and community.”

Winder is about 100 miles away from Greenville, S.C. but the superintendent there said Friday that his district saw an increase in reported threats on Thursday. That’s common after any reports of school violence nationally, Superintendent Burke Royster said.

Based on past experiences, Royster said he expects the increase in reports to taper off sometime next week.

Most of the threats reported after situations like at Apalachee don’t end up being substantiated, Royster said. While some are hoaxes, like many of the ones in Georgia over the past two days, most are made by people who genuinely believe there is a threat.

”I don’t mean to say that they are not made in good faith,” he said. “But people are hyper attentive.”

School and law enforcement officials are asking parents to talk to their children about being responsible online.

“We take each and every threat to one of our schools as real and investigate them exhaustively. It is maddening that threats like these, hoax or not, follow a horrific event like the one in Barrow County earlier this week,” Forsyth County Sheriff Ron Freeman said in a news release. “Parents, please talk with your kids and explain that mentioning shooting up a school is no joke and I will put them in jail if they do it.”

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Staff writers Sara Gregory and Joe Kovac Jr. contributed to this article.

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